Chapter Seven~

Hey Guys! :) So this chapter is honestly me just coping with my anxiety and slight depression. But i thought that it applied to the story, because I know that Regina would deal with a lot of these things too :) I also hoped that some of the readers might relate to these struggles as well.

No matter how 'minor' your anxiety or depression is, it's a real problem; don't let anyone tell you that your anxiety/depression isn't real. But even though it is a struggle and it's a terrible, awful thing, it's okay. It's okay to feel these things. They're emotions just like every other emotion we feel, and we have to live in them and soak them in and deal with them just like every other emotion we have to face. Some of these emotions are good, and some of them are bad, but they are all okay. Don't let anyone tell you that feeling this way is bad, because it's not. It's normal.

But we do have to fight back, and we do have to move on. Sometimes when you're depressed you don't even feel like hoping anymore, but i wanted to write this chapter to give us all a little hope and peace, because we all deserve that.

Sorry if it's kind of a ramble more than a chapter, but i kind of needed to do this. Hopefully one of the readers out there needs this too :-P

Love you guys

Regina's POV—

It starts in my gut and wriggles its way to my heart. It devours every feeling I have left inside me, and then slowly makes its way down to my soul, gnawing at its edges & every last sense of identity I have left.

I close my eyes tight. It's so hard to sleep in a strange house, but even harder to sleep in a strange house you know shouldn't be strange.

I hug the pillow around me tighter, wishing that all these anxieties that are tearing me apart would go away. I just want to remember.

My bed is too big. Too empty. There's a ghost sleeping besides me… a ghost of a memory. It whispers to me, just sharing with me glimpses of faint memories that someone used to be there every night to hold me and make everything okay. But I have no idea who that person is. And everything is not okay.

The anxieties roar inside me, blinding my thoughts and making me scream inside. Oh god…. I feel like I'm drowning. All my dark thoughts swim around me like silent, fierce, terrifying ocean waves, threatening to drag me down to the ocean bottom. I hold the pillow tighter, tighter, wanting everything to just disappear.

Why did this happen to me?! I scream to myself, silent tears rolling down my cheeks. I feel so utterly helpless, so utterly alone, and so utterly terrified.

And then a voice answers. A voice from seemingly nowhere and yet still everywhere. A voice I know I've heard before but yet cannot place. A voice that makes me think I'm crazy, because I can hear it, but it feels like it's coming from inside me.

Because you asked for this, the voice says.

I open my eyes, not breathing. Who just said that?

I sit up, looking around, but all that surrounds me is silence.

There's not a soul in the house except for Henry, and I can hear him sleeping in the next room. I move to get up, but the voice stops me.

Oh don't bother looking for me, it says, I'm not anywhere in your house. But don't worry. What sometimes seems like a curse can be a gift. When life brings you down to the point where you have no motivation to get up anymore, we just have to keep marching on.

There's will always be light in the sunrise after the night fades to day. There will always be a hand reaching out to stop your fall. There will always be air to stop your lungs from drowning. There is always help.

There is always a bright answer to things. And the reason why you asked for this Regina, is because you wanted yourself to feel that. You did some things in your life you didn't want to remember anymore. You wanted to be free. So don't lay here in this darkness feeling like there is no escape. You've just escaped from that.

You are free now, my dear. You are free to live. This isn't saying that it won't be hard, it will….. but as long as you are still given the gift of living and feeling and breathing…. Take that gift with open arms. It isn't going to last forever, and it is such a precious thing. Sometimes we're scared to live, because we know that it always comes to an unescapable end. And because it's unescapable, that's only more of a reason to keep living. We are mere humans… we have no way to understand what happens when we leave this earth. Our minds can't even comprehend that. We shouldn't' waste our precious time here worrying about what happens after death, because after death is something our minds just can't wrap around. Just like we never knew life was possible, it was. Who's to say something different than life isn't possible, something we can't yet understand?

So don't' waste time trying to understand it. Open your arms child, let life embrace you. Take a deep breath and let your fears melt away. Things are going to be okay, even in the times when it feels like they won't.

You are here. You are living, you are breathing, you are thinking and feeling.

Soak up every moment of this experience. In the moments when all you can feel is darkness, remember that light is going to come again. And you are not the only one feeling this way. You are not alone.